since fuel prices have sky rocketed im starting to think more about fuel efficiently even though im just a worker and not a owner driver
ok your fully loaded, 44ton you have two option a 100mile motorway journey or a 70mile dual carriageway which has lights/roundabouts petrol stations traffic slowing down you get the point
or tell me a more even scenario if mines is one sided.
poll incoming
i think the motorway journey hands down wins
Depends entirely on the conditions on the day; the motorway for example could be totally fubar with constant stop start traffic. In ideal conditions the motorway would probably fare better, but that’s not a given. A driver, no matter how good he or she is cannot improve fuel efficiency in stop start situations but they sure as hell can lessen the impact of it.
A dual carriageway of high standard even involving traffic lights wouldn’t be so very different to motorway cruising…unless you happened upon the road at peak time if it becomes a slog…so i doubt this particular scenario would be worth the shorter route assuming the driver is capable of maintaining momentum, those who hammer foot to the floor up to evey junction and slam the brakes on only to have to start every single time from stationary might fare better on the motorway.
One run i do can either be via the probably 30% shorter single track A road or via the longer route part dual carriageway part motorway, in this case the single track road involves multiple roundabouts and the inevitable traffic problems, the biggest issue is that the approaches to the roundabouts are literally all downhill and the exits almost all uphill so the worst of all worlds hard on the vehicle and heavy on the fuel.
I’ve used the fuel usage thingy on the dash menu to measure the fuel used going both ways, the longer route uses maybe 1 to 4 litres less fuel and is easy on the vehicle but it usually takes 5 minutes longer unless at peak period when it can take 10 minutes longer.
This doesn’t take into account wear and tear on the vehicle, brakes/tyres etc, which again is a variable, some drivers get it some don’t.
No easy answer to these questions, so many variables, all you can do is judge for yourself what you think is best.
The sad thing about our industry is that if you discussed this with all of your colleages, some wouldn’t have a clue what you’re talking about, some would be disinterested, the usual thick as two short planks suspects would take the ■■■■, some would only go the route they hope is 3/1000ths of a second quicker, if you were lucky you might find a very tiny minority who would understand the issues and converse sensibly.
As usual Maoster has answered as fully as i in two sentences 
When I worked for stobarts they put a 100 l limit on dieseling up away from depot , so depot had none , had Redruth , so put a 100l in at chievely , 100l at Leigh Delamare & 100l at Aust srvs ( would of used avonmouth t/stop but card would never work there ) & then got a phone call about stopping at every services , I lost interest in mpg / fuel bonuses after that , I suggest you do the same
I don’t have a scientific answer but on Monday I went from Bury to Sheffield via A628? Or was it A629? Over the hills basically. Oh my, I was fully loaded at 18ton and it was wet. That was a different experience to my normal day to day driving. I spent more time in manual with retarder/limiter than ever before. I even had the engine at over 3k revs which was new to me. The red zone!
Anyways on the way back I went M1/M62 and I reckon I deffo used less fuel. However I was a lot lighter too with maybe 11 ton total.
TruckDriverBen:
since fuel prices have sky rocketed im starting to think more about fuel efficiently even though im just a worker and not a owner driverok your fully loaded, 44ton you have two option a 100mile motorway journey or a 70mile dual carriageway which has lights/roundabouts petrol stations traffic slowing down you get the point
or tell me a more even scenario if mines is one sided.
poll incoming
i think the motorway journey hands down wins
I would say the 70 mile i.e shorter journey is better.
Best mpg I get is 13. So 100 is 7.69 gallons. And 70 miles at 7.69 gallons is 9.1 mpg which I think I would achieve better than that.
The biggest mitigator on a more ‘technical’ route shall we say is the driver and their ability/thought process. A xriver who treats the accelerate pedal like a stop/go button will batter fuel, but a driver who feather the throttle, lower its use of the highest intensity sections so would fet a different answer to the question posed.
toonsy:
The biggest mitigator on a more ‘technical’ route shall we say is the driver and their ability/thought process. A xriver who treats the accelerate pedal like a stop/go button will batter fuel, but a driver who feather the throttle, lower its use of the highest intensity sections so would fet a different answer to the question posed.
I disagree. Little to do with the accelerator pedal. It’s all to do with the brakes (including retarders). If you can minimise their use you will get the best mpg.
stu675:
toonsy:
The biggest mitigator on a more ‘technical’ route shall we say is the driver and their ability/thought process. A xriver who treats the accelerate pedal like a stop/go button will batter fuel, but a driver who feather the throttle, lower its use of the highest intensity sections so would fet a different answer to the question posed.I disagree. Little to do with the accelerator pedal. It’s all to do with the brakes (including retarders). If you can minimise their use you will get the best mpg.
Same as accelerator. Use them less, achieve more. Same principle for both. Less braking means less accelerating, I should have mentioned it in my other post but trued to cover it in the ‘thought process’ malarkey.
Ref accelerator best advice is to use no more than 25% of accelerator travel.
If fuel consumption is an issue then I have to say having an office load planner who knows the difference between their arse and elbow can save (or waste) more diesel than an indifferent driver. Most of the time I’ve been running round in circles burning diesel for fun, with stupidly organised booking times. I’ve tried in the past to point out this waste but all I’ve even had from management is ‘Dont worry about it, the customer is paying the mileage’
Where do you even start with that kind of attitude?